What we gain by experience is not worth that we lose in illusion

Some delicate matters must be treated like pins, because if they are not seized by the right end, we get pricked.

It is not what we have but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance.

In giving alms, let us rather look at the needs of the poor than his claim to your charity.

None despise fame more heartily than those who have no possible claim to it.

We forget the origin of a parvenu if he remembers it; we remember it if he forgets it.

People who declare that they belong to no party certainly do not belong to ours.